We previewed Puppeteer

When you're sent a game such as Puppeteer in the heat of summer, you're happy to see something refreshing coming and after a few hours playing Sony Japan Studios' new game, we can say we haven't been disaappointed at all. On the French side you will find our full preview of the game, which we unfortunately haven't had time to translate, but if English is more your thing, check out inside, we've written a short summary of our impressions and who knows you might even find a bunch of high quality videos. Enjoy!

Impressions

Though some people might think that Puppeteer is nothing but another LillteBigplanet lookalike, let us just say it's not. Sure, it's a platformer and as such, it shares some common points with Media Molecule's series, but it also has its very own identity. As the game is presented as a puppet show, the game's atmosphere immediately strikes as special and particularly charming. The story teller and the rest of the voice cast set the tone for a very well narrated tale which puts us both in the role of a spectator and a puppet master. The gameplay mechanics are solid and somewhat fairly unique, with the use of the magic pair of scissors called Calibrus for example. There are 7 acts, each composed of 3 chapters, a lot of bonus stages to discover and, of course, heads. Indeed, the main character is a boy named Kutaro, who was first turned into a puppet before being beheaded by the Moon Bear King, and he will have to find a good number of hidden heads in order to accomplish his task. Puppeteer is undoubtedly a gorgeous game to look at, with great art style and beautiful graphics, but it also plays well and we can't wait to be able to try it in 3D - apparently it wasn't possible in the preview code - as you can tell it was made with 3D in mind. Considering its surprisingly cheap price - $40/€40 - we don't see how any PS3 owners could miss it when it's released on September 10 in North America and September 11 in Europe.

All comments

Does it have online co-op?
I was thinking about getting this game if I still have some spare money left (after some of my August purchases) but I'm still on the edge if this is actually my type of game (gameplaywise) or not. Definitely appreciate the style though.
Probably need to actually check the videos of gameplay to decide (while usually trailers are good enough for me to make a decision).

I'm not sure but I don't think there is online co-op. I think the game proposes co-op so people can play with their childen or girlfriend maybe, as the second character cannot die and basically helps Kutaro by interacting with the world (collecting moonsparkles or serving as decoy sometimes against a boss).

Thanks for the reply, never heard of MeGUI, but I will look for it, thanks.

As for Youtube, I will try and see if I can make some Youtube videos better, since even Gamersyde's 720p videos look better than Youtube's heavily compressed 1080p videos.

The reason I asked in the first place is because I have 2 gorgeous 1080p videos of Final Fantasy XV and a 720p@60fps video of Metal Gear Solid V - The Phantom Pain which are much better than their Youtube versions, the FFXV videos are from an unknow source (I spent 3 whole days looking for the source with no success) and the MGSV video is from Eurogamer's Digital Foundry section.